Surrender
by MarsianPrincess
Summary: For five years the SS7 have been running for their lives—until one day, Eligius Corp. makes Bellamy an offer he can't refuse. Bellamy/Clarke reunion fic.
1. Chapter 1

Surrender

"Tell me you're not serious." Raven stormed into the old pressure chamber. "Five years of running, Bellamy, of having our asses kicked, and the minute we're back on Earth you're just going to _surrender_ to them?"

Their motley convoy had been out there since dawn, waiting to take me to the Gagarin. The message was clear: my life in exchange for _hers_. "They've got Clarke."

"They _say_ they've got Clarke. We don't even know if she's _alive_."

I sighed, pulling on my jacket. "How else would they know about her?" In space, the temperature was regulated; a jacket was unnecessary. Down here, it was a habit I realised time could never erase—like so _many_ things. "There's no other explanation."

"Like hell there isn't. Just because _we_ haven't made contact with the bunker, doesn't mean—"

"The bunker doesn't know Clarke didn't make it, Raven—you _know_ that." I steadied myself against the small port-hole, watching over the open green field where the exchange was to take place. "You said, you were with me."

"I am," she sighed. "But you saw what Praimfire did. If... _if_ she survived, she'd want you to use your head, you told me that—"

"And she was right." Even this tiny chamber was proof of that: the design was Raven's, the rubber seals Monty's, the vents, Emori and Murphy had scavenged from the Ring, the hours, Harper and Echo had spent soldering the leaks—but the decision had been mine; three days of depressurisation that had cost us three weeks of oxygen. "Up there it kept us alive; but that was a different time." Her eyes were softer now, full with harder memories. "I left her to die once, Raven...I won't do it again."

A clanging rang through the chamber, a steel pipe, most likely: wreckage from the rough landing. "Come on, Blake. We ain't gettin' any younger out 'ere."

"Okay, that's it,"—Raven pounded on the controls and the pressure doors burst open—"scratch my baby," she yelled down at them, "and I'll carve my name on your _asses_." The rocket was falling apart all on its own, that wasn't what really mattered to her. She'd become protective over the years in a way I hadn't allowed myself to be. She was right, of course. I _was_ surrendering. But not to Eligius Corp. "Grade school grease monkeys," she hissed.

Last time we were here we'd needed oxygen masks and radiation suits to be outside. I'd forgotten how bright it was, how sweet the grass smelt; I'd forgotten how _warm_ it could be.

"Big talk, Reyes," Kurk shouted back, rotten mouth chewing on tobacco, "why don't ya come down 'ere and say that?" The drop from the chamber was at least five metres; the rocket had landed nose-up, and that was where it had stayed. He and Salin were just lucky we weren't in Zero-G, Raven would have kicked their asses to Mars and back.

"I know you want this to be real," she said softly, "I do too. But you don't have to do this out of guilt. Look what you've achieved, Bellamy. If she _did_ die…, it wasn't in vain."

I'd thought about it; of course I had. Maybe the nightblood had worked. Maybe she'd made it back to the lab in time. Maybe she'd found a way to ration the food long enough for the plants to regenerate. Maybe she was down here counting the days for us to return. That was my heart talking though, wasn't it? My head told me she'd died, and she should have. But I couldn't explain it: that humming in the air, that buzzing beneath my skin. _Together_ felt so long ago yet...so, _so_ near. "Do you see anything?" I asked her, eyes searching the tree-line again.

"No. And honestly...I don't expect to."

"Look—maybe you're right, okay, maybe this _is_ a trap. But I can't take that risk." Beyond the field, beyond the shallow forest was the Gagarin: a glinting beacon on the horizon, a wolf in sheep's clothing. "We've both been prisoners on that ship, Raven, and I can't let…." I scrubbed a hand over my eyelids. "You know what I'm talking about."

"Then let's talk about what they're going to do to you once they've got you there."

"I don't c—"

"—you don't _care_ what happens to you. I know. I get it, okay." Of course she did. She'd flown a hundred-year-old escape pod through hell for Finn. "Let's at least talk to the others—"

"No."

"Bellam—"

"Not until I'm gone. They want _me_ , Raven. It's..." _—_ _Grounders in space_ _—_ _cold sweat_ _—_ "it's our only choice."

She sighed into the breeze. "Then go." She adjusted her brace and turned to leave. "I'll comm the others."

"Raven, wait." I pulled the hand-gun from my belt and placed it in her hand. "If you don't see Clarke...shoot them, shoot me—whatever you need to do."

She nodded, and once I was sat on the ledge, she gave me a push.

My boots sank into the mud, squelched as I walked—then Kurk was shoving a sweaty rag in my mouth, Salin clamping my hands behind me. " _Bellamy._ _Blake_ ," he spat against my ear. "Captain Dansk is goin' to be real happy to see you."

Dansk could go float himself, I wasn't doing this for his personal satisfaction. I didn't need Salin's hand on my back for encouragement either. I shrugged him off and he backed away. I'd broken his nose just over a year ago. Obviously one of his brain cells still remembered.

The field wasn't wide, but it was long. At first, it was too long. The tall-grass rose and fell like the tide, sucking me deeper as I searched the spaces between the trees for movement—then it wasn't long enough. _Come on._ The end of the was field approaching too fast. _Come on, Clarke._ The undercurrent too strong. _Where are you?_ And then the edge of the field was washing over me, passing me by. _No._ She—she should have been here. She.… My boots felt like they were full of wet sand, my thoughts drowning in fears of the past. _They lied_. _Dansk had lied._ She was...dead. Clarke, was dead.

I craned my neck, looking to Raven. _Shoot me._ Murphy was there next to her, a rifle in his hand, another in Echo's at the primary hatch in the nose of the rocket—that same door I'd— _Raven..._?

Her mouth, all of their mouths, were forced open now, screaming something I couldn't hear.

"Keep it movin', Blake." Kurk's fist in my jacket turned me back me around and— _Clarke_.

Then I couldn't hear anything at all.

She was gagged too, wide eyes matching mine as six filthy hands pushed her through the tree-line: she...she didn't know I was alive either?

They moved us a step at a time, forging us closer together at an excruciating pace, but it still wasn't enough time to memorise everything about her I wanted to remember: the crimson in her golden hair, her khaki camos, her ocean-blue eyes. And that look. I knew that look: _now_ _**t**_ _ **here's**_ _something I thought I'd never see_ — _Clarke, p_ _lease come inside_ —w _e need each other, Bellamy_ —we'd been here before, her and I— _if I'm on that list, you're on that list_ — _she'll see how special you are_ —I needed to touch her— _if I don't see you again_ — _if_ _anything_ _happens to me_ —I needed to know she was real— _I've got you for that_ —but, hands tied— _hurry_ —words unheard— _I left her_ _behind_ —here and now, the apocalypse had found us all over again.

She knew what I was thinking, she always did; and the look in her eyes hardened as she passed me. I knew that one, too. She'd come back for me _—_ she was already planning it. But there was something else; something, I'd come to recognise in myself.

We'd surrendered, both of us. But not to Eligius Corp.

Six years and ten days, and _finally_ , we were both done using our heads.

* * *

Author's note:

Thanks for reading! Reviews are very welcome. Bellarke reunions are always so tactile, so I wanted to write something where they were restricted from touching, or even talking. For anyone who's worried about Madi, this story assumes that Clarke surrendered to the Gagarin to protect Madi, who made it to their 'safe house' to await Clarke's return.


	2. Chapter 2

I listened for the gunshot behind me: the gunshot that told me they'd betrayed us; the gunshot that told me Murphy and Echo had shot them all dead; the gunshot that told me Clarke was…. But it never came. She was safe. _Clarke_ was safe. And that was all I needed to know to keep my feet moving one in front of the other.

We'd landed 200 miles south of Polis in the only patch of green for miles around. I didn't recognise this part of the forest, but I _did_ know the leaves of that broad-leaf shrub were sharp enough to cut skin, that the branches of those star-leafed trees were solid enough to whittle into spears, and that the fumes from the sap of that blue-berry tree would burn out your eyes if you got too close. They didn't know any of that. They didn't know the basin they'd landed in would flood with the first heavy rain. The database on the Ring said they'd been in cryosleep for 100 years, from before even the first apocalypse. That wasn't the whole story, but this still wasn't the Earth they knew.

"Home, _sweet_ home." The Garagin shone through the final line of trees, and Salin's hand was on my back again, pushing me down the muddy slope into the basin. There were four pairs of footprints going the other way. The smaller ones weren't as deep, the tread the same as the Guard on the Ark used to use—Clarke's.

"Shame ya didn't get to say goodbye to her." Kurk's fingernails raked across my scalp, yanking my head backwards by the roots. "That was your last chance." _Ha._ The spit-saturated rag in my mouth restricted my reply, and I was grateful. They didn't know Clarke. Her and Raven would have me out before sundown.

The work-bay doors cranked open above us, and the loading platform made its own way down. The ship looked bigger down here against the young trees. Against the planets and the constellations, it was a tiny speck. But that wasn't the only thing that was amplified. I'd been a prisoner on this ship for almost three months. The pain had sucked away most of my memories, but not all of them. Not the hours alone in the dark, sprayed with hot engine oil. Not the sound of splintering bone as they drilled tiny holes in me. Not the serum they injected me with to escalate my worst fears; fears that were full of her, of leaving her to die. _Sundown_. It looked like maybe five or six hours away as the platform lifted us above the canopy. I just had to hold out until then.

Two men waited in the shade of the bay, away from the sunlight. They'd long succumbed to the metallic twang of hot steel and asteroid dust.

"Bellamy Blake." _Dansk._ "How long has it been? A year? Two?" _One year, five months, and thirteen days._ "You cut your hair," he mused, playing with the ends. I moved it out of his fingers, and he smiled. They'd shaved my head last time I was here. By the time we ran into each other on the Belt nine months later, it was long enough to tie up. Running for your life every second of every day did that to you. "We have your cell ready for you." He leaned closer, breathing the hot, wet stench of tobacco into my face. "It'll be like you _never_ even _left_."

He motioned to the man beside him. I recognised his blue overalls—and the needle in his hand. _Breathe._ Trying to negotiate would only make it worse, I'd learned that the hard way.

My eyelids clamped closed, and I bit down on the gag. _Sundown._

#

" _She needs medicine, Raven."_

" _I_ know _, Bellamy."_

" _Whatever's wrong with Harper, it's in the food. This is going to happen to us all."_

" _I know."_

" _There has to be something you can—"_

" _I'm not a_ doctor _, Bellamy. What do you_ expect _me to do?"_

 _._

"Why...you...the Belt?"

The words ebbed and flowed with the throbbing in my head, the thick red marks across my chest burning like acid as I hung chained to the cell wall. "What...have you done to me?"

Dansk held up the used needle and considered it a moment. "Pain intensifying serum." He threw it back on the silver tray, and Kurk tightened the leather belt around his hands. "I could poke you with a feather right now and it would hurt like hell, so let me ask you again." He was back in my face quicker than I could process, pulling me by my fringe to look at him. " _Why_ were you on the Belt?"

.

" _Monty says whatever's affecting the food, is in the water now too." The oxygenator whirred beside us. Then shuddered to a stop. "How long do we have until it gives out permanently?"_

" _Depends"—she gave it another whack with the wrench—"on whether there's someone here every time it does that."_

" _Okay, so we need a new oxygenator, a hydro-generator, and medicine for Harper. Am I missing anything?"_

" _Yeah. Where we're going to_ get _all that stuff. It's not like there's a galactic auto-repair shop we can just pull up a-t…." There was a silence as the oxygenator cut out again. A silence in which all Raven could do was sigh. "Tell me you're not serious."_

 _._

"We were m-mapping s-stars." I lied. "F-found it by accident."

My chin hit my chest when he let go. I couldn't find the...energy...to pull it back up.

Stale water splashed over me, and the belt was sliding across my bare stomach again. _Son-of-a-bitch!_ "Let's pretend for a second that we don't _both_ know you're lying. How did you get there? Not in that stupid little rocket of yours, that's for sure."

.

 _Raven laughed. "You're insane if you think this rocket is getting us all the way to the asteroid belt. It's not getting us to the_ Moon _, let alone_ Mars _."_

" _Trojan horse. You remember those chambers we saw on the Gagarin—"_

"— _oh, no—"_

" _They'll be in cryogenic sleep, Raven—"_

"— _weren't you tortured enough the_ first _time—"_

"— _if we dock our ship to theirs,—"_

"— _oh,_ hell _no—"_

"— _then we can save on fuel…."_

 _._

"There was...f-fuel, on the Ring."

"On the Ring?"

"We _—_ we pulled it out the lines" _—_ Dansk nodded at Kurk, and the belt swung through the air again—" _Argh!_ "

"I don't think so," he replied, picking up a drill-bit from the tray. " _I_ think you had help."

.

" _Are you hy_ pox _ic?" She hit the oxygenator again for emphasis. "It'll take nine months, minimum. We don't have enough food, or water—"_

" _Once we're docked, we're in. We can use their ship while they're sleeping, refuel, and un-dock right before they all wake up. They'll never know."_

 _._

" _Help?_ " I half-laughed. Every nerve in my body felt live, every blood-cell popping like firecrackers beneath my skin. The wounds were nothing more than friction burns and scratches but, with that serum, it was as if he'd gone through me with a chain-saw. "Who would help _us_?"

.

" _And what about_ Harper _, Bellamy?" she whispered, looking over her shoulder at the empty corridor. Footsteps. Tired ones. "She's not going to last nine_ hours _, let alone nine_ months _."_

" _We'll freeze her, too. Look—what I really need to know is, how are you going to get us back?"_

 _._

Dansk scoffed, "You really expect me to believe that? You expect me to believe you got all the way to the Belt in that two-man rocket, and then made it back here _three months_ before us?"

.

" _There's only one thing faster than hydrozine," she groaned, glancing over her shoulder again. "And I don't know where you expect me to get a nuclear converter—or a crate full of Plutonium 239."_

" _Dansk said there's a trading station there. It's big enough to dock the Gagarin and who knows what else," I hurried. "We_ have _to try this, Raven." For Clarke._

" _We have to try_ what _?" she hissed. "We're going to fly all the way there and hope they're giving it out like Unity Day rice-cakes?_

 _The footsteps stopped behind her. "They are."_ Monty. _"The database says their machinery is fuelled by nuclear power."_

" _Right. Of course it is."_

" _We've left too many people behind already," he continued. "Jasper, Clarke…. And Harper didn't hesitate when we came back for_ you _."_

" _Then I guess we're doing this," she sighed, pushing the wrench into my chest. "It's your watch. I'd better go and get your horse saddled up."_

 _._

I snorted. I'd expected blood to follow, but it didn't. There was a stinging on my face from something. A fist? The belt? "I could start l-lying, if the truth isn't what you w-want to hear?"

"Then what about the assassination?"

"Ass-assination...?"

"At the trading station, you killed President Eligius' son."

.

" _Monty!" It echoed through the network of air-duct tunnels louder than it should have, and my head whipped back to the scene below the slatted vent: Eligius, and a group of men arguing around a table, smoking cigars. They hadn't heard._

" _We don't have time for this, Bellamy," he whispered, knees knocking against the metal as he backtracked. "Raven has the converter installed and the others are back on the rocket."_

" _I know, I know, just...just listen."_

" _I can't hear anything."_

" _They're—I think they're talking about…Mars?" It was the youngest one, at the opposite end of the table to Eligius. "What the hell?"_

" _What?"_

 _._

"I...I didn't know who he was." It was true, at least. But that didn't stop the strangling grip around my heart, the grip that had me choking on air. The s-serum...it didn't just intensify _physical_ pain.

"Just like you didn't know what those _plans_ you stole were?"

.

" _Bellamy, what—?"_

" _They're colonizing Mars; building an army."_

" _An_ army... _?" He pulled away from the vent, sank back against the metal. "Against the Council. That's why they sent the Gagarin back to the Ark. Scoutship."_

" _Yeah, and they found_ us _instead. That explains the interrogation; they think we know where the Council are."_

" _And what happens when they find them?"_

" _I have a pretty good idea," I grunted. "I need to get those plans, Monty. Get them back to the bunker."_

 _._

"I was l-looking for the rest-room. There's not a lot of paper on the R-Ring. If you know...what I mean."

"No, I don't know what you mean." He nodded at Kurk, and the pain flashed across my cheek.

.

" _What are you doing in here?" It was him. The guy from the meeting. The youngest one._

" _Me? I'm—ah—I'm the cleanin' crew."_

 _._

The scream tore through me, and I stamped my foot into the floor.

"Do you remember what _this_ feels like?" he sing-songed, clicking the drill-bit into the drill. "You've got one more chance. And this time, it's going to hurt a whole lot worse. _Where,_ are the plans?"

.

 _His eyes widened on the papers in my hand, and his nervous hand reached for the gun at his hip—_ don't do it _. Gun-shot rang through the room, and for a moment no one moved. There wasn't much for him to shoot out here, but I'd had more than enough practise on Earth._

 _._

My eyelids squeezed in on themselves, and I bit back the pain. "In a waste dump somewhere between Mars and the moon. Probably."

He flew at me, drill-bit jerking against my eyelashes. "You think I'm _joking_? _Who_ are you _working_ for?" he spat. "The Council? I know they're down here. Where _are_ they?"

"D-dead. Died in the l-landing."

Sweaty fingers grabbed at my hair again, yanking my head sidewards. "E- _nough_ of the _lies_. Tell me now, and I'll make it easy for you. _God_ —tell me now...and I'll make sure you're dead _before_ I hand you over to President Eligius."

"Go—go _float_ yourself."

The drill whizzed to life next to my ear; bore into my shoulder; vibrated through my teeth and all the way to my toes; echoed in my head. Stars exploded before my eyes, and I _knew_ it before it even happened….

I'd passed out.

* * *

A/N:

Thank you so much for reading, and to Pretty Peach and nizi2003 for the reviews!

I'm already working on chapter 3, so it should be ready much sooner than this chapter. I have 10/11 chapters planned out for this, so don't expect things to go smoothly. There's some angst and unexpected conflict ahead.

Reviews are my friend, so feel free to comment on what you liked/didn't like!


	3. Chapter 3

_Bellamy…._

"Hmm?"

 _Time t'wake up…._

Something was hitting my hair. Was it raining?

 _Hey…._

The rain…I'd _missed_ the rain.

"Hey, Blake!"

I'd missed the smell as it touched the ground and the way it illuminated the forest. I'd missed the way it—something solid bounced off my cheek, and my skin crawled with a soft burning when I flinched. "Mm— _What?_ "

"Wake up." It was Salin, slouched against the wall on the opposite side of the bars, a box of nuts and bolts in his lap. He tossed one in the air and caught it again.

"That doesn't work anymore," I croaked. My eyelids were somewhere between open and closed, somewhere between here and there. "Serum's worn off."

"So?" He launched the bolt in his hand, and the cell walls swam as I threw my hand out as fast as I could to catch it. That was a mistake. My wrist was still chained to the wall where I was slumped, fresh blood dribbling from the hole in my shoulder as my cheek took the hit. _Son-of-a—_

It took all I had to level my eyes at him. "Still pissed about that broken nose?" _Oh, yeah._ "Dansk's methods are usually more imaginative than this. Must be one of _yours_."

His head clocked left and then right. "Dansk told me t'entertain myself." He rolled a metal cylinder beneath the bars, and I held my breath as it touched my boot. _Smoke bomb?_ "Water," he said, drinking from his own canteen. "You need t'be _alive_ when we reach the Belt."

"Better for me if I'm not." The chain was long enough to strangle him with, but without a wrench, it was useless. They'd taken my belt. And my shirt was in a heap by the door. Bootlaces?

"Would've been _better_ for you if you'd come clean." He shook his head. "Dansk 'as it all wrong."

"Oh yeah?" There were no windows in the cell, no way of judging the time. No way of knowing how far away Raven and the others were. I had to get my hand out of the restraint, just in case. My bones still shook from the pain, so he didn't even question it when the canteen slipped in my hands, spilling water all over my lap and slicking the handcuff. "And how's that?" I tucked in my thumb, and squeezed.

"Lettin' go of that Grounder girl was a mistake, for a start." My eyes shot to his. I tried to hide it with another squeeze of the restraint, but he'd already seen the fire in them. "Oh yeah," he smiled, _"_ just like that. I knew it, as soon as I 'eard those transmissions"— _transmissions?_ —"I knew it." He slid closer to the bars. "She's important to you, ain't she, that Grounder girl?" I didn't reply. Just looked at him. _Wanheda._ She was Wanheda to him, Commander of Death—not Grounder girl. "Yeah," he repeated, leaning back. "I never would 'ave let her go. One spin of that drill and you'd be spillin' _all_ ya secrets."

He wasn't smart, Salin, just a prisoner on good behaviour. But somehow he'd seen something Dansk couldn't.

"I 'ad someone special once," he said, sipping from the canteen again—and it was enough to stop me from what I was doing with my hand. _'The hell did he just say?_ "She 'ad these red ringlets, and...and these green eyes," he smiled, "greener than grass, that just sparkled in the sunshine. She could steal _anything_ —cars, diamonds...next-door's cat." _Charming._ He swirled the liquid in the canteen, and his smile faded. "Do ya have any idea what it's like t'wake up after a hundred years and find out everyone you knew is dead?"

No. I didn't. But I knew what it was like to wake up every day and relive _her_ death all over again.

"I 'ad a brother, too," he continued. "Earl. He was a sword-maker— _replica_ sword maker. _Idiot._ I told 'im no one would buy 'em, but he kept on makin' 'em. Had a shop just outside San Antonio, by that old tim-ber…. I guess ya don't know what I'm talkin' 'bout, do—?"

"The Alamo."

He grinned. "Yeah. The Alamo. Hell, I'd forgotten 'bout that. Clint Eastwood," he laughed. I had no idea who Clint Eastwood was, but I'd read the stories—Travis, Bowie, and Davy Crocket. "Earl an' me, we used t'play like that when we was kids. Used t'go down to the old rail crossin' sometimes, too, an'...well, someone 'ad to be the damsel in distress." _What?_ "Is it just me, or are these bars line-dancin'?"

I glanced around the cell, and back to him. _Dancing?_

He took another swig of the water, and started humming. " _D-on't_ break my heart, my achy breaky heart—come on Blake. Don't be shy." He swayed to his feet, shuffling left and then right, kicking with his imaginary beat. "And _if_ you break my heart—"

" _Um_...Salin?"

"My _achy_ breaky"—a wooden dart struck the side of his neck—"heart…." He grabbed at the thing, playing with the fluffy end of it. And then he was a mumbling heap on the floor.

A boot nudged his shoulder, and the cell-door swung open.

" _Echo?_ "

"Bellamy."

"Is he…?"

"Valerian root." _Sleeping._ "Old habits die hard," she shrugged, stowing the blowpipe back in her belt and dragging him into the cell with her. "I wouldn't drink that."

I lifted the flask to my nose, and gagged. "Jobi tea." It was a faint smell, almost odourless, unless you'd spent three hours puking it back up, and the following two days with the worst hangover of your life.

She passed me my t-shirt and crouched beside me, popping the restraint open with her knife. "Monty spiked the water supply. They'll be seeing unicorns for a while longer yet."

"Where's Raven?"

"In the work-bay with Murphy and Emori."

"Clar—?"

"Being Clarke," she sighed.

I didn't even want to _think_ about what that meant. "Okay. Plan?"

She pulled my arm over her shoulder and helped me up. "Same as always. Don't get caught." She brushed my hair aside and checked the mark on my cheek. "Maybe one day," she smiled ruefully, "you'll actually stick to it."

I wrapped my fingers around hers, pulling them between us. "I'm fine."

She smiled again, like she didn't believe it. "I hope she knows how lucky she is."

I nodded, because we'd never really talked about why I'd ended things. Because really, she knew.

"You still remember the way to the bay?" she asked at the end of the corridor.

"We were here for nine months, I don't think I'll ever forget."

"Okay, good." She lifted a panel in the floor to the service tunnels, and ushered for me to jump down. "I'm going to retrieve Monty and Harper. Meet you in the bay."

"Wait, I'll come with you."

Laughter echoed down the corridor behind us, and she smiled that smile again. "Better for you if you don't."

She'd heard. "Right." She'd heard everything. _Great._

The walkie-talkie on her belt fizzed to life. "Can—hear me? Echo, report."

"Yeah, Raven. I got him."

"Good. Get him in the tunnel, over."

"Copy that, over." She shoved it back into her belt. "Go. She's waiting for you down there."

And then she was gone.

 _Right._

I pulled the panel with me as I jumped down. "Raven...?" A warm orange glow illuminated certain sections of the tunnel, the spaces between them too dark to see anything. _Where was she?_ A hand landed on my elbow and I spun around—but it wasn't Raven. "Clarke."

It burned in the silence, and ignited the darkness.

"Bellamy."

Her wild eyes shone like stars as they searched mine, a screaming reminder of all the years I could have had out there with her. All the years, I'd thought I was going to have. "Clarke."

I took a step forward, and she took one backwards. Then another, step for step. "Bellamy, we"—another—"we have to"—and another—"to meet the others."

She'd been the centre of my universe for so long, I couldn't stand there and not orbit her—"I know"—but I couldn't not touch her, either. I caught her mid-step, grabbing her hand and pulling her to me, knotting my fingers in her hair and clasping her forehead to mine. Her trembling hands twisted into my shirt, pulling my shoulders closer as I squeezed my eyes closed, just listening to her breathe. "You're...alive," I whispered.

Her voice was light, lighter than I'd ever heard it, as I breathed her in. "So...are you."

"Not for much longer," Raven's voice fizzed between us. "Not unless you get a damn move on."

 _Yeah_ — "Thanks, Raven," I groaned, tearing myself away from her. _Time._ _Why was time always against us?_

She swung the rifle over her shoulder and took the lead. "Left and two rights?"

"Left here and one right. Second one…." _Banging._ Above us. _Footsteps?_ The rifle was almost as big as her, and as my hand found her shoulder, ushering her to stop, I—it was just like that day in the bunker when I'd taught her to shoot. _Focus_.

"Chasing fairies?" she whispered.

"Chasing _something_." The siren wailed around us, chucking angry red light at the tunnel walls and— _they knew._ "Run." The tunnels were the first place they'd check. "Second right just curves around. There. Go."

She was half-way up the service ladder when the drumming of footsteps pounded through the bend behind us. One look and she was passing me the rifle, banging on the panel for Raven. "Come on…."

I lined up the shot and tested the trigger. Soft release. Fifty feet? "Try the walkie."

"Walkie's dead," she hissed, banging louder. If they didn't already know we were here, they did now. " _Raven_ , come _—_ "

The panel swung open and Raven's hand plunged into the tunnel. "Alright, _alright,_ I'm— _Murphy_ , drop that and I'll drop you, do you hear me?" She pulled Clarke up, and then Clarke was pulling me up. " _Murphy_!

They already had the outer-doors open. "Toolbox? Storage crate?" I told her above the ring of bullets on metal, dragging a gas canister over the panel to secure it.

" _Whoa_ ," Raven warned. "What's—?"

"—we've got company."

The inner-doors _slammed_ closed behind Harper and Echo, and they were doing the same. "Same here," she hissed. "Monty?" Her hands hovered over the door controls. "Red or blue?"

He shoved her out of the way, wound the wires around his hand, and ripped them straight out of the control panel. _Monty?_ "We've got maybe 10 minutes."

" _Great,_ " moaned Raven, making her way back to the outer-doors. "Time…." _Always against us._ Lightning tore through the night-air and ricocheted around the work-bay, and it was in that spilt second, I saw it—that ringing, it wasn't bullets on metal, it was _rain_. Fierce and wild, and almost as angry as the roar of thunder that followed. The basin...it was going to flood.

"We need to get out of here," I said behind her.

"No kidding. _Murphy_ _—_ _!_ "

"Yeah, a little help here would be great, Raven." He and Emori were already there at the loading platform, soaked in rainwater, strapping down a pile of drilling machinery. Machinery? For…?

I doubled my strides to catch up with her. "What's all that for?"

"The bunker."

"The bunker?"

She glanced behind her, and I knew where she was looking. "The bunker." It was Clarke, being Clarke.

I rounded on her, fast. "What's wrong with the bunker? Where's Octavia?"

Her wide eyes were fused to mine, but another flash of lightning and they fell to the trail of wet blood down my t-shirt. "You're bleeding. That needs to be—"

"It's nothing. Where's my sister, Clarke?"

"Bellamy, I…." She sighed. "The bunker, it's...under rubble. I tried to contact them but I...I haven't heard anything."

I wanted to laugh. "The bunker was sealed. They were safe from Praimfire."

"I know."

They'd survived Praimfire, to what? Die from starvation? Run out of air? How many times could you cheat death? "Five years, Clarke."

"I know."

I felt it so completely when I stepped out onto the platform, wind whipping my hair across my face, rain pounding on my back. It silenced Raven's screams to keep everything secure as we descended, Murphy's jaw on the verge of dislocation as each vicious flash brought a new instruction. Yeah, space was brutal. It could suck the air from your lungs and flip your blood cells inside out, it could boil your brain and freeze your eyeballs. But Earth...I'd forgotten how _ruthless_ she could be.

The Rover—even the damn _Rover_ had survived—was wheel-deep in muddy water when we reached the bottom. Echo and Murphy got the back door open, but when I moved to help load the machinery, Raven shoved my hand-gun into my hands. I couldn't hear the words, but I knew what she was saying— _"_ _Not with that shoulder"._

 _Fine._ "I'm still driving," I mouthed, but she was shaking her head, pointing at Clarke already closing the driver-side door behind her. _Shotgun, then._

Echo, Murphy and Harper were still outside when Emori slammed the door closed behind her. "Okay, John says to wait for his signal, then put your foot to the floor."

Clarke put the Rover into gear with a nod, and waited as the others laid wooden boards in the mud for wheels to grip on to. I couldn't see any movement in the work-bay, and the platform was still on the ground, but that hadn't stopped her nervous glances. "Raven." It was loud in the sudden quiet. "Can you disable that platform from here?"

" _Dis-able_ it?" She looked at me, and then back at Clarke's reflection in the rear-view mirror.

"Unless you want them following us?"

"I mean, yeah," she replied, shaking the tablet in her hand, "I guess. But...this whole basin is going to flood." She'd lived here for years. Of course she already knew that. "Disable it, and they could all die."

That look. " _Don't_ disable it, and _we_ could all die." It was the look she'd given me in the field: she was done using her head. But at what cost? Murphy's signal came and there was nothing but the wet sound of wheel-spin as she loaded the Rover up onto the boards, Emori and Monty intent on following the shadowy outlines of the others through the rain as they pretended like they weren't listening. "Raven?"

She was watching me again—waiting for orders.

"Raven's right," I supplied. "Even if they come after us, they don't have any transport, and they can't navigate the forest." I'd already killed Eligius' son. "We're not murderers."

Clarke didn't look at me, just nodded quietly as the others piled into the back wet and cold. I knew what she was thinking: she didn't take orders from me. She and I had never had that kind of relationship. It was always... _together_.

Once the boards were strapped to the ceiling, she had the Rover ploughing through the water, twisting and turning with the bumps in the earth, and then the trees were whizzing past too. The others were huddled together in the back, Murphy with Emori, Harper with Raven. She still had the tablet in her hand, zooming in and out on the scans of Eligius' plans. I hadn't lied to Dansk. A fire in B-Sector had destroyed them—which meant that they really _were_ in a waste deposit somewhere between Mars and the moon. Lucky for us, Raven had thought to take copies.

Echo's cheek was pressed up against the misted glass, just watching. Probably remembering. _Old habits die hard._ I looked back at Clarke. It was true. "You've gotten really good at this," I said quietly. _Too good._

She smiled ruefully. "Well, I've had a lot of practise." The words came out in tiny white puffs, but somehow, that still wasn't enough evidence she was alive. "There's somewhere we can stay tonight, just up ahead. It's safe and dry. Then tomorrow—"

"—tomorrow we move north to Polis."

"We're going to need a plan."

"No problem there," Raven replied, resting the tablet on the panel between us. "From quick analysis, it looks like we've bagged a sonic drill rig, couple different sized drill-bits and a hoist. Which means," she continued, pressing 'play', "we can split the bigger debris and use the rover to tow it. Smaller debris we can scoop up and lift out."

Clarke sighed. "Then comes the hard job." _Finding out who'd made it...and who hadn't._ Octavia wasn't the only one down there. Her mother was too. Kane. Jackson. Miller. Niylah.

"How much further?" I asked.

"It's just over those rocks," she replied, pulling up. The rain had slowed right down but the wind was just as vicious. "I'll get the Rover hidden, you guys check the perimeter for any more of Dansk's crew; we were just west of here when they caught me. The path to the cave is just back there."

"Cool," nodded Murphy, "Emori and I will take west."

"Echo and I can take east?" Raven asked her, and she nodded.

"And I'll take south," Harper grunted, "alone."

She was gone before anyone else could protest. "I guess that means you're with me," I said, smirking at Monty.

"Guess so."

The rocks weren't that steep, but they were wet, making the climb much harder than it should have been. That still didn't explain Monty's huffing and puffing, though. "What?" he asked when he saw me watching him.

"It's getting to you, isn't it?"

"No."

"Yeah, it is." Monty had ended things with Harper four months ago, after getting her the antidote. "The Monty _I_ know doesn't usually just rip wires out of things."

"Well, it's a lot easier when you know you're not the one that has to wire them back in." He sighed. "What if she'd died, Bellamy? God, she's all I've got left. What if...I'd lost her?"

I stopped him outside the mouth of the cave. "Four months. How's that working out for you?"

He shrugged. "It sucks."

"Exactly. Okay, you check around the outside. I'll check inside."

"Copy that."

The mouth of the cave was covered by a thick tarpaulin sheet, one from Becca's lab. Just behind that was another, and then another, each one glowing brighter with a warm orange light, each new chamber thicker with the smell of burning wood. _Someone was here._ I slipped the gun from my belt, and drew back another sheet. One more? Or two.

One.

And there it was: tents—three of them—made from the drop-ship's parachutes. A wooden frame, strung with smoked meat. A stone well, still dancing with rainwater from the shaft above. And drawings, in chalk, across the walls and all over the ceiling, flickering with stories of _him_. Of _Abby_. Of the _crash_ and the _grounders_. Of the _mountain men_ and the _City of Light_. Of _Lexa_. And of _Praimfire_. _Clarke._

The fire hummed red from underneath in a way that could only mean it had been alive for days; that it had been _kept_ alive by topping it up with new wood. _Someone_ had— _click_ —a gun, cocking. "Okay..."—twigs, snapping underfoot—"you got me. Now come out here where I can see you."

I'd expected missing teeth and greased-up overalls, but that was _not_ what was on the other side of that barrel. It was a little girl. A little _Grounder_ girl. "Who are you?" she growled, shoving the rifle further into the air.

"Whoa, okay." I slid the gun back into my belt slowly. "I'm not going to hurt you, I—"

" _Who_. _Are_. _You_?"

"Look, I'm not—" Gunshot rang around the cave, and my only instinct was to grab the gun back out of my belt.

The rifle was steady in her hand again. Too steady. "I _said_ , who _are_ you?"

* * *

Thank you so much for all the positive responses, I'm really blown away!

This chapter is longer than the previous two, and while they focused on establishing back story, this chapter focuses more on the present and where the rest of the story is headed. More than anything, I hope that the characters and scenarios are realistic and believable.

As always, comments are my friend. Let me know what you thought!


End file.
